And now, a quick story from a Group Leader.

While we were in Philly, our group decided to walk over to Elfreth's Alley.  It is a narrow old street lined with little brick houses with colorful trim built in the 1700s.  We were turning to leave when a car inched through the alley and stopped in our midst. A lady got out, recognized that we were a tour group, and asked where we were from.  We got to talking with her and she told us that she lived in the house behind us.  

We asked her what it was like to live in such an old house, in a place where tourists streamed by your windows day and night.  She said that she had lived there for almost forty years, spoke with us for a couple of minutes, then asked if we would be interested to come inside and see what the house looked like from the inside.  Wow!

She showed us some of the original features of her home - a knob in the dining room ceiling that piped in gas for lighting before electricity, a small circular staircase, an old Victorian era cupboard, and old maps that showed how close the Delaware River flowed to the alley in the old days.

What a gift that she invited us, complete strangers, into her home!  And a lot of it had to do with where we were from.  As she took us into her kitchen, she said "I'm not sure that I would have invited you in if you hadn't been from Maine."  

She made our day.